Not sure if this counts as a rpg but tried this out when my DM guide for D&D got beered to the max (i know you guys hate D&D but i still play it).

Basically find yourself an egg timer and then each person gets until the sands run out to tell some story, the person telling the story can assign any role to any other player and solicit a response from any player but otherwise has the stage at all times. When the sands run out the next person gets the spotlight.

It was a fun little game to wheel out in an emergency.

Sounds like a fun little game. I like the way the eggtimer instills a sense of urgency. Now, when it becomes the next person's turn, are they obligated to continue the same story, or does each person tell their own independent story?

What are your plans for this game? I'd encourage you to flesh it out some and publish it, even if just on the web as a freebie somewhere. RPGHoard would be good for that...

P.S. Don't assume we're all D&D haters around here. It's a pretty even mix. :)

You know, our group uses something like that for my D&D game, to fill in the gaps between sessions and set-up conflicts and complexities for forthcoming games.

So, do you use anything other than the timer to set limits on the speaker, like a list of words that should be worked into the narrative, or anything?

The method we have gives you (a limited number of) things like "interjections" and "questions" that allow you to add (or change) elements of the narrative while the other speaker is giving his story (ie: "Oh, and that's when the dwarves appeared, right?" -- suddenly, dwarves are now part of the situation, and have to be worked in)

(So, yeah, don't assume we're D&D haters around here -- that's one of those memes about the Forge that everyone elsewhere seems to "know" but isn't actually true -- heck, I give regular updates regarding my D&D game here, and have for the past two years!)

the way we played it everyone continued the same story but it was never a laid down rule as such. I dont think there would be much work writing something short like this up as a mini-rpg so I may well have a go at it.

the interjections and questions sound like a good idea too, i'll have to try that at the next session

Go get a copy of a card/story telling game by the name of Once Upon a Time. It is a structured version of what you are describing. Each participant has a number of story element cards and a fairy tale ending they are trying to work to. If the narrator introduces a story element and someone has that element card, the holder of the card plays it and takes over the story at that point. The goal is to use all your story element cards, wrap up all plot threads, and end the story with your fairy tale ending (which can be difficult as people jump in and take the floor from you). The egg timer is slightly different, making this more a fun group activity than a game, but I bet you could come up with a set of rules to keep the game-side present.

Oddly, this sounds a lot like one of the examples of play that's going in Formless (well, sans egg timer). And given that I had a tremendous amount of fun with that, I'm willing to bet that your own game is more fun that than a barrel of monkeys (more people need to use that expression, I'm just doing my part).

I like the idea of using the egg timer to add an additional sense of urgency (for my money, words usually work just fine, but I'm up for trying new things). Ditto the idea of having one person assign roles to the players (something I hadn't thought of in Formless - we usually shared characters).

At any rate, I'd be interested in seeing you develop this further, provided that you manage to keep cards and/or dice out of it ;)